Jana Dean is a middle school teacher in the Olympia School District in Washington State. A recipient of the prestigious Fulbright Distinguished Award in Teaching as well as the Presidential Award for Excellence in Math Teaching, she brings a deep curiosity about the intersection of math and language to her research and to her eighth grade classroom. This curiosity is informed by her experience as a language-learner herself.
Regionally, she leads professional development to deepen teachers’ knowledge of mathematics and to introduce teachers to Number Talk routines. In her school, she leads her math colleagues to investigate the language resources and needs of students. She has collaborated with the Math Education Collaborative on classroom case studies and with Illustrative Mathematics on task development.
She writes a column on the intersection of learning math and language for the Washington State Mathematics Council and serves on the Science Editorial Board for Rethinking Schools